Torture after torture after torture in Uganda!

Author, Musaazi Namiti. PHOTO/FILE

What you need to know:

  • Marinos is nursing permanent scars and other torture marks on her behind.   

This week’s subject for this column was supposed to be Rwanda, a serial human rights abuser that has opened its doors to asylum seekers from the United Kingdom. But when images of yet another shocking physical torture of an innocent Ugandan (the latest in a series) flooded social media, I had to quickly change my mind.

This time the torture victim is a 29-year-old woman with a very unUgandan name: Alexandreos Marinos. She has been brutally tortured and has had to bare her naked behind to show the entire world how a government with the primary duty of protecting its people and their property can be extremely cruel to them.

This cruelty is now unbearable. Our private parts, notably the unmentionables, are meant for our own eyes or those of our spouses, usually in the privacy of our bedrooms or bathrooms. But when a woman yanks off her knickers to show everyone what has happened to her backside, it shows she no longer cares. The physical torture has ruined her life.

If Marinos has children, they are already being haunted by those terrible images on the internet. The internet will keep them for posterity. And some children may use them to taunt Marinos’s children.

Marinos has provided irrefutable evidence of her physical torture. We have to believe her. Before her, we had and still have Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, who is now living in exile after fleeing Uganda because he was nearly killed. Many others are rotting in detention centres.

But there is more that is profoundly disturbing: Marinos was, she said, raped by members of our security forces. Rape is one of the worst things you can do to a woman. If our political leaders cared about ordinary Ugandans, they would do their best to bring the torturers to justice.

When the regime that wields power in Uganda launched an armed rebellion in the early 1980s, it cited election rigging and human rights abuse. Neither was a strong enough reason to launch a civil war considering that it was going to result in death, destruction and injury on a large scale.

But the people of Uganda did not have much choice. They carried on with their lives — and the rebels pressed ahead with the war, recruiting child soldiers who were too young to know what war means. The rebel leaders’ children were in the safety and comfort of European cities.

Eight years after the rebels seized power, they embarked on a constitution-making process, leading Ugandans to think the new leaders were decent folks bent on restoring sanity. A Constituent Assembly was elected in 1994; the Constitution was promulgated in 1995.

The Constitution has many articles/clauses about human rights, but the current torture has made complete nonsense of those articles/clauses.

The following articles/clauses are in the Constitution for show; they do not mean anything:
“Respect for human dignity and protection from inhuman treatment. No person shall be subjected to any form of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

“A person unlawfully arrested, restricted or detained by any other person or authority shall be entitled to compensation…”

“Freedom of association which shall include the freedom to form and join associations or unions, including trade unions and political and other civic organisations.”

Marinos is nursing permanent scars and other torture marks on her behind simply because she tried to exercise her freedom of association. Does the President know Ugandans are being tortured? Yes. Would he sit back and relax if one of his children was tortured like Marinos? No.

Mr Namiti is a journalist and former Al Jazeera digital editor in charge of the Africa desk
[email protected]    @kazbuk